Behold His Eternality

It is good to be back with you—I have so missed being here the last couple weeks. Thank you for praying for me and my time in Brazil. Let me share just a short report. I started in the remote regions of the Amazon, which was an adventure to say the least. There’s a reason not a lot of people live in the Amazon. I would probably describe it as the most aggressive environment I’ve ever been in. We rode down the Amazon River on a boat and then some offshoot tributaries. Picked up a couple guides from an unreached people group and they led us into the rainforest.

As soon as you walk into that canopy of trees, you are immediately greeted by a swarm of creatures that you didn’t know existed before then. You thought you knew bugs and insects—until you get there. And they are all ready to feast on you. So I’m wearing long pants, shirt, but somehow they find their way through those clothes and just bite. You can spray Deet all over you, but these creatures eat Deet for breakfast.

I can deal with the smaller creatures. My larger concerns were the jaguars and venomous snakes that I had read about. So our guides were trying to encourage us as we were hiking during the day. They said, “Don’t worry. Those animals sleep during the day. They only come out at night.” Which was encouraging until I thought about it. “Oh, so the most deadly animals come out at the time when I’m least conscious of the Amazon.” That’s not particularly encouraging.

So you would lay down at night in this hammock, because you don’t sleep on the ground. You don’t want to be on the ground—too many creatures, spiders, tarantulas. You crawl into this hammock hung between two trees, and there’s a mosquito net over you that you cinch up behind you. You’re cuddled up in this cocoon and you can hear noises—all kinds of noises. You’ve got howling monkeys. They’re all around you.

You realize that this mosquito net is nice. It’s protecting me from the bugs. But it is no defense against a jaguar. It is a sanctifying experience. You just start to fall asleep and you’re praying. We should pray every night that God will sustain us, but it’s just different when you’re in the Amazon. It’s like, “Lord, the only way I’m going to wake up in the morning is if You wake me up. I’d love to wake up in the morning.” So you fall asleep and then when you wake up and realize, “Ha. I’m breathing!”

Now, here’s the best part of the Amazon. At night we were spending time with our guides, gathered around the campfire and they would share a couple stories from their ancestry—which was fascinating. But then they would ask us to share a couple stories. So that first night I just shared some stories from Mark 4 and 5 about Jesus and that how Jesus is the one true God. I explained that He came to the earth and has power over nature,  evil spirits and power over disease. I told them Jesus has power over death itself.

Well, the next night when we got around the campfire, they say, “Those stories you were telling us about Jesus last night, we’ve never heard these things before. Our tribes and villages have never heard them and we want to tell them the stories. Can you tell us some more, so we can know them and tell them more? “Yes, we can!” So we started sharing the stories. And one of the guides said—and this is all through a translator, of course—but he said, “When you tell these stories, it’s like my heart starts beating out of my chest.” We could see the Spirit working with him—we couldn’t  see anything else because it was pitch black—but we saw the Spirit working in their hearts.

So on our last night with those guides, we’re sitting around talking. We said, “Hey, we’ve shared some stories. Do you have any questions?” And this one guide said, “You tell these stories about the one true God and I just feel in my heart that I’ve done so much wrong against Him. Is there any way to get rid of that feeling?” I said, “Well, that’s a great question. Yes, there is.” And we shared the gospel with him.

As soon as we started sharing that, the other guide said, “Well, if we believe in Jesus, that would be turning against what all of our ancestors have believed.” You could tell he was counting the cost of following Christ. Unfortunately that’s where we left them and they didn’t say they were ready to believe. But I am convinced those guides are on the verge of trusting in Christ. They’d never heard the gospel in that remote region of the Amazon.

So we went from there down into the mega-city of Sao Paulo, where I met with about a thousand pastors and church leaders at a conference. They were talking about making disciples and multiplying churches and it was so encouraging to see the ministry they’re doing.

Just one snapshot. We go into the one area of the city of Sao Paulo—one of the largest cities in the world—and this area is called Cracolandia, which means “Land of Crack.” Basically the Brazilian government has quarantined certain parts of the city for people who are addicted to crack, just to isolate them there. Just imagine this city square that is surrounded by police, because they don’t want those people to get out and affect the communities around them. It’s not a safe place to hang out.Everywhere you look, people are lying on the streets, sitting, walking around—everybody is totally addicted to crack. They’re just given over—physically, intellectually, emotionally—to drugs. I feel like I’ve seen a good number of things in the world, but this was one of the most hopeless scenes I’ve ever walked through.

I say hopeless, until we get to the edge where some pastors have set up a ministry. They call it Christolandia—Land of Christ. It’s a long narrow building with room for rows of chairs, four or five wide on each side, and it’s full of people who are just sitting there. This is early in the morning and these are people who have come to the edge of Cracolandia and are waiting for breakfast, which is provided through this ministry. But before breakfast, they hear the gospel. There’s music and then they asked me to preach.

So I just proclaimed the power of Christ to free us from bondage to so many things in this world. I said, “If you want to turn from crack and trust in Christ today, you can.” I invited people to come to the front and about 10-15 people responded. We prayed over them and that began a process for these people to walk through a two-year program, helping them come off not just the physical addiction, but to see the power of the gospel to transform their lives. After this, we attended a conference and I was so encouraged when some men and women, who were in the middle of this transforming process—only few months off the streets of the Land of Crack—came and led worship that night.

Psalm 90 Reminds Us Of The Importance of God’s Mercy

I’m going to show you a quick video clip, and remember as you watch it that only a few months earlier, every person you see on this stage was totally strung out on crack on the streets of Brazil.

[Video of worshippers]

They’re wearing shirts that say, “Jesus Transforms.” I want to encourage you with two takeaways from my experience in Brazil. First, this gospel is good and it has power to transform lives. From the Amazon jungle to the urban jungle, this gospel is good. And second, on a more personal level—reflecting on God’s mercy—after I preached and we prayed for these people in that place in Christolandia, we started handing out food to those who were still sitting there. I was walking person to person, handing them food, looking in their eyes, and I was just about to lose it emotionally. I tried to tell myself, “Don’t lose it. This would not be good for ministry to these people.”

But I was so overwhelmed and here’s the thought that hit me: I just realized that the only thing that separated me from being in one of those seats was the mercy of God. I had no other explanation for why I wasn’t there than the mercy of God in my life. That’s what unites us in this room as well. By no means is it because any of us here is better or smarter or more anything than anyone else in the world. What unites us in this room is the mercy of God and the power of the gospel to transform our lives. We want to make this gospel known, don’t we? Oh, McLean, may God use us to make the gospel known in this city. May there be faces like that all over Washington as a result of God’s grace and work in this church. Let’s show the transforming power of the gospel to people who are addicted to drugs in this city—and then from here to the ends of the earth. May our church show the love of God from the mega-cities to the rain forests. Through the power of the gospel, may we spread the glory of our God.

That’s why it was so great to see those former crack addicts giving glory to God. It’s the whole point of this series we’re walking through: Beholding God’s Glory. We want to be a people who know and spread the glory of God, because this is where life is found—knowing and glorifying God. Last week we looked at resting in the sovereign rule and reign of God over all things, seeing God in all His holiness.  Then what was that line from Mike’s sermon? He said, “We have a diminished view of life because we have a distorted view of God.”

The greatest need in your life and mine right now is a right view of God and His glory. So over the next few weeks, I want us to talk about a few attributes of God that we don’t talk about a lot—to our detriment. Today we’ll start with the eternality of God. One of the clearest pictures in God’s Word of the eternal nature of God is found in Psalm 90. Interestingly, this psalm is the oldest psalm we have, written by Moses. Many of our psalms are written by David and others in his era of the history of God’s people. But Moses wrote Psalm 90 years earlier, while the people of God were wandering in the wilderness.

There’s so much in this psalm that we need to hear. Our lives are so consumed with the temporary and with the things that matter today. We’re a busy people. “Hey, how are things going?” “Pretty busy.” We all say that. We’re focused on, even worried about, all the things we have to do today. We’re so focused on the moment. We live in a culture that lauds pleasure in the moment. We want immediate, instant gratification. We are intoxicated by the temporary, by what’s happening today, so much so that we quickly become blind to what’s going to matter ten trillion years from now. We don’t think a lot each day about what’s going to matter then. But life changes when you think like that. The nature of God beckons us to think like that.

So I want to show you four truths in Psalm 90 and each one builds on the other. We’ll see one truth and we’ll realize, “Whoa, if that’s true, then this is true. And wait—it that’s true, then this is true.” This should lead us to some massive implications from this psalm that was written thousands of years ago for the way we live today.

Psalm 90 Teaches Us God is Eternally Glorious

God is eternally glorious—that is clear from the very beginning of Psalm 90. Look at verse two: “Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.” What does he mean, “from everlasting to everlasting…”?  We don’t talk like that. We would say, “From beginning to end.” But that’s just it. We can’t really talk that way about God, because God has no beginning. “How old is God?” is a wholly inappropriate question.

I mentioned this to my kids. When my four-year-old son asked me, “How old is God?” my answer was, “Buddy, God is as old today as He ever was. Does that make sense to you?” He says, “No.” I told him, “Me either. God is so different from us. Buddy, you and I had a beginning. There was a day when we weren’t.” I’ll tell him, “When I was born 39 years ago, you didn’t exist. And 40 years ago, I didn’t exist either. One day I was born and on another day you were born. Now, you’re four years old. I’m 39 years old. But God isn’t a certain age, because He was never born. He doesn’t have a beginning and even more mind-bogging, God has no end. He’s so different from us.”

Verse three says man returns to dust. We die, but not God. God has no end. And then verse four talks about God and time. This will really give you a headache if you think about it. How does God relate to time? What Psalm 90 is teaching is that God is Lord over time. Whereas we exist in time, God exists beyond time. Isaiah 57:15 says God inhabits eternity. Psalm 90:4 says He does this in such a way that a thousand years are like a day or a few-hour watch in the night.

Now, think about all that happens in a thousand years. Generation after generation after generation. The rise of empires, the fall of empires, the rise of new empires, the fall of those empires—on and on and on. Formation. Reformation. Counter-reformation. A thousand years of history for man are like a few hours in the night for God. Just think about our country. We’ve existed for less than 250 years. That’s a matter of mere minutes in God’s perspective.

Our God is Lord over time—and God is unchanging throughout time. “From everlasting to everlasting” God is God. And His attributes do not change with time. Our attributes change with time. The way we look changes over time. The way we think changes over time. We grow in knowledge. We change in skill over time. We know we’re able to do things at 40 that we weren’t able to do at 14. And vice versa—we’re able to do some things at 14 that we are not able to do at 40.

But God is not like that. He’s totally different from us. Think about it. He’s omniscient. He knows all things, which means that God doesn’t forget anything over time. We forget things over time; God never forgets. God doesn’t learn anything over time. We learn things over time. But God has all knowledge at all times. God is also omnipotent. He has all power, which means He doesn’t weaken over time as we do. Nor is God strengthened over time, because He has all power at all times. God is unchanging throughout time which is truly good news.

Think about this—we don’t ever have to worry about God changing for the worse. How horrible would it be if we didn’t know what the Creator of the universe is going to be like tomorrow. “He might change for the worse.” No, no, no—Who God is today He will be tomorrow. He will not change for the worse. And He won’t change for the better. You might think, “Well, why wouldn’t we want Him to change for the better?” Well, here’s why. Because if God were to change for the better in some way, that would mean that God wasn’t the best possible Being in the first place—and He is. It’s a good thing God can’t get any better, because He’s the best—period.

God is eternally glorious. He’s perfect in all of His attributes at all times. He’s just as perfect today as He was a billion years ago and He’ll be just as perfect a billion years from now as He is today. God is eternally glorious. This is the God we’re meeting with right now. This is an awesome thought—and that’s just Truth #1. Think about the implications of this. So if this is true—if God is eternally glorious—then think about the awesome and even alarming truths that flow from that. They’re here in Psalm 90.

 Sin Against God is Eternally Serious

If God is eternally glorious, then Truth #2 is this: sin against God is eternally serious. As Moses reflects on the eternality of God in the first six verses, he then considers the frailty of sinful man in the next five verses. Look at verse seven where he says that unlike God, “We are brought to an end by your anger; by your wrath we are dismayed.” Why? Because “You have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins in the light of your presence.” Moses is saying none of our sins are hidden from God and each of those sins is eternally serious.

Just think about what this psalm teaches us about the seriousness of sin. This psalm is a potent reminder that sin robs us of life. It takes us all the way back to the very beginning of the world, the first sin in Genesis 2-3. God created man and woman to live with Him forever, but they turned from Him and sinned against Him. Psalm 90 reiterates what was recorded in Genesis 3, that sin would result in toil and trouble. Any sin in our lives robs us of the life God has intended us to live.

Think about the context in which Psalm 90 was written. Moses is wandering in the desert with the people of God. Remember why? They had stood on the edge of the Promised Land and God told them, “I’m giving you this land. Take it.” But they didn’t trust Him; they turned away from Him and disobeyed Him. As a result of that sin, God told them an entire generation—every adult over a certain age—would wander in the wilderness until they died. Thousands upon thousands of people missed out on the blessing of God because of their sin.

I urge you to see how these words, written thousands of years ago, have huge ramifications for your life right now. Any sin that you are holding on to—particularly any secret sin—first, realize it’s utterly foolish to try to hide your sin from an eternally omniscient God. You cannot hide anything from Him. Also realize that sin is serious. Right now it’s robbing you of the life God has intended you to live. It’s robbing you of the hopes and plans and dreams and peace and love and satisfaction that the God of the universe has designed for you. Don’t treat sin lightly—it robs you of life and ultimately it results in death.

Again, think about the context. They wandered in the wilderness for 40 years, until every single one of those people passed away. Every day, more deaths—funeral after funeral after funeral—for 40 years. So it makes sense for Moses to reflect and write verse seven, “We are brought to an end.” Verse nine, our years come to an end. Verse ten, they’re soon gone. Why is that? Why do we die? Why do our days pass away? Why are we so soon gone? In this room, why do we only have a relatively small number of years on this earth—whether 70 or 80, as the psalm mentions—or 17 the precious teenage daughter who died in a car accident, whose parents I just spent time with this week? Stories like that are represented around this room. Why do we have death in this world? Why do we experience such pain and hurt and heartache through death in this world?

The definitive answer the Bible gives is it’s because of sin. We all die because we’re all sinners. So God help us to realize how serious sin is. If sin robs us of life and sin is what results in death, then why do we treat it so casually in our lives?

God, help us to realize that You’re eternally glorious and any one sin against You is eternally serious. This leads to the third truth, when you put the first two together.

Psalm 90 Warns Us The Wrath of God is Eternally Real

If God is eternally glorious, and if sin is eternally serious, then the wrath of God is eternally real. That’s what Moses says over and over again. Look at all the references in Psalm 90 to wrath and anger. Verse seven, “For we are brought to an end by your anger; by your wrath we are dismayed.” Twice there. Then verse nine, “For all our days pass away under your wrath.” Verse 11, “Who considers the power of your anger, and your wrath according to the fear of you?” That last verse is a question that basically asks, “God, if You are eternal in all of Your attributes, then who can imagine the eternality of Your wrath?”

Next week we’re actually going to look at the wrath of God. I’m not sure I should mention that, as some of you might decide to skip next Sunday. But I actually want to encourage you—you don’t want to miss next Sunday, because if God’s wrath is real, then we need to know what that means. It’s total foolishness to ignore what that means if His wrath is real. So be here next Sunday. We’ll talk about what it means then.

But for today, let this soak in: If God is eternally glorious, then that means all of His attributes are eternal. So if all of His attributes are eternal and one of His attributes is wrath, then His wrath is everlasting. It’s eternally real.

When we see hell described in the Word of God, it is never described as a temporary place. Read Revelation 14, 19, 20 and you’ll see that every time hell is described these words are used: “forever and ever.” As if “forever” wasn’t sufficient, even though it means the same thing. So why does it add “and ever”? It’s like, “Don’t miss the point.” It never, ever, ever ends; never stops for all of eternity. Jonathan Edwards used to speak with tears in his eyes when he described hell. He’d talk about the torment of burning like a living coal—not for an instant or for a day, but for millions and millions of ages. At the end of which, people will realize they are no closer to the end than when they first began, and they will never, ever be delivered from that place. I don’t even know how to begin to comprehend that. But this is the Word of God. There is real eternal wrath awaiting sinners before a holy God.

This makes Moses’ next words in Psalm 90 make all the more sense. He says in verse 13, “Return, O Lord! How long? Have pity on your servants!” Then he says in verse 14, “Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.” Do you see the contrast here? Moses has contemplated the eternal wrath of God, and what does that lead him to do? It leads him to plead for the eternal love of God. He says, “Satisfy us with Your steadfast love.” The Hebrew word is hesed, and it literally means never-ending, never-failing, eternal love.

The Salvation of God is Eternally Satisfying

God is eternally glorious, which means sin is eternally serious, and the wrath of God is eternally real—but praise God, that’s not the only truth. Because if all these things are true, that means that the salvation of God is eternally satisfying. The mercy of God, the love of God, the grace of God is eternally satisfying for all who turn from sin and trust in Him, which is only possible through the gospel. This is where Psalm 90 points us forward to Christ. We can know that this eternal God Who is eternally glorious has made a way for you and me as sinners to be saved from the eternal consequence of our sin.

This eternal God has sent His Son Jesus, and Jesus lived a life none of us could ever live—a life with no sin. And then, though He did not deserve to die—because He had no sin—He chose to die on the cross for our sin. He chose to bear the wrath we deserve and then He rose from the grave in victory over sin and death. Therefore anybody now and throughout history who turns from sin and trusts in Christ will be saved from all their sin and will be satisfied in God.

It’s the greatest news in all the world. This is the gospel. This is what has power to change lives. It has the power to change those addicted to crack and the same message has power to save you. No matter where you are or what you’ve done, this gospel has power to save you from your sin, that you might be satisfied in God. Despite all you’ve done, you can be satisfied in the salvation of God—not only now, but forever and ever. The salvation of God is eternally satisfying.

We’ve thought about hell—now let’s think about heaven for a minute. I think many Christians have a view of heaven that, if we’re honest, is pretty boring. I mean, throughout all eternity, are we really just going to sit around singing on clouds? Forever and ever? If that’s what you think, I have good news for you. Heaven is not a never-ending choir practice in the clouds. That’s not what the Bible teaches. Heaven is a physical place where we will dwell with each other before God. And there are a lot of things we don’t know, but this we do not. This is the essence of heaven:  for all of eternity, we are going to enjoy more and more and more goodness in God. That’s the picture of heaven. We’ll be with God, enjoying His goodness, forever.

If God is eternally glorious—and that means His goodness is eternal—that means a thousand years from now, there will still be more goodness to explore and enjoy. Ten thousand years from now, still more. Ten billion years from now, still more. Which means our joy will increase in Him more and more and more throughout all of eternity. There will never be an end to more and more joy in God. This is so different.

Have you really enjoyed something for a while and then after a while it starts to get old? Not as enjoyable. I think about an example in my kids’ lives. They get a new toy and they’re like, “This is amazing!” They play with it all the time—for about a week. Then they’re like, “Can I get a new toy?” You just got that other toy. “Yeah, but I’m kind of tired of it.”

I mention kids here, but we’re the same way as adults. We run after this or that. We’re constantly on a quest for the newer, the nicer, the better. But the reason we do that is because everything in this world eventually fades. But not God. He never fades. He’s eternal. So  you can mark it down: You will never, ever, ever be bored by an eternally good God.

I want to read a pretty thick quote from a pretty thick book. Stephen Charnock wrote a book called Discourse On the Eternity of God. It would take most of eternity to read this book, it’s so thick. I remember when I came across this quote, I thought, “I wish I would have written that.” So try to follow this:

When we enjoy God, we enjoy Him in His eternity without any flux. Time is fluid, but eternity is stable. And after many ages, the joys will be as savory and satisfying as if they had been but that moment first tasted by our hungry appetites. When the glory of the Lord shall rise upon you, it shall be so far from ever setting, that after millions of years are expired, as numerous as the sands on the seashore, the Son, in the light of Whose countenance you shall live, shall be as bright as at the first appearance. He will be so far from ceasing to flow, that He will flow as strong, as full, as at the first communication of Himself in glory to the creature. God is always vigorous and flourishing, a pure act of life, sparkling new and fresh rays of life and light to the creature, flourishing with a perpetual spring, and contenting the most capacious desire, forming your interest, pleasure and satisfaction with an infinite variety, without any change or succession. He will have variety to increase delights and eternity to perpetuate them. This will be the fruit of the enjoyment of an infinite and eternal God.

I don’t think I’m good enough to write that, but just picture it:  for all of eternity we’ll just give God time to show you more and more and more delight in Him, and it will never, ever end. Because God is eternal, our delight in Him will be eternal. Our lives will be marked by infinite enjoyment of Him. These are awesome truths.

How does that change our lives then today? If these things are true, I challenge us to imagine the implications, based on Psalm 90. If these things are true, then live today for what’s going to last forever. Now Psalm 90:12, right in the heart of this chapter, makes sense: “So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.” When you know God is eternal and you know your time on earth is limited, then you make each day count for what’s going to matter in eternity.

All of a sudden you realize this changes everything. How much money you make doesn’t matter. What you do with the money you make is what matters. All of a sudden you realize that the people around you are far more important than the things on your to-do list. You realize that as parents, the most important thing in your children’s lives is not the clothes they wear or the sports they play or even the grades they get. What’s most important is that they know God. You realize that in your own life, knowledge of God and obedience to God are far more important than achievements you accomplish or positions you attain. Those things pale in comparison to the knowledge of God.

It’s a change of perspective. All of a sudden you realize that every person in your life, in your family, in your workplace, in your neighborhood, in this city, around the world—every person you see this week is either headed to an eternal, everlasting heaven or an eternal, everlasting hell. And the only difference is what those people do with Jesus. So that leads you to speak about Jesus. You tell people about Jesus. You live today for what will last forever. I challenge you this week live for what’s going to last forever.

As you do, do it with hope..In a world of sin and suffering—in the words of Psalm 90:10, “toil and trouble”—you live with hope. How do you do that amidst all the pain in this world? Right before I came to this worship gathering, I found out that a friend is in surgery right now. In a world of toil and trouble, how do you live with hope? Here’s how. You hold on to hope, Christian, because you know God is your home. This is the beauty of verse one in light of everything that comes after that. “Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations.” Think about Moses, who’s writing this as they’re wandering from place to place in the wilderness. He didn’t have a home. So he looked up to heaven and he said, “God, You’re my home. You’re my home now, and You’re my home forever.”

Psalm 90 Asks Us To Look To God When Suffering

As I was praying for you this week, I read this psalm knowing that there are people all across this room whom life has treated with pain and sorrow, trial and trouble—some of you right now. If that’s you, I want you to hear this good news. For everyone who trusts in what Christ did on the cross, you can know this: sorrow, trial, pain, trouble in this world are temporary. Your pain, your sorrow, your trials, your trouble will not last forever. How do you know that? Here’s how you know that. The eternal God of the universe loves you and He has promised to show Himself strong, merciful and satisfying on your behalf. He has promised there is coming a day when sin and sorrow will be no more, when trial and trouble will be no more. There’s coming a day when this eternal God will personally wipe every tear from your eye. His love for you will never, ever, ever end. “Neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38-39).

So if that’s true, then I implore you that if you’ve never trusted in the love of God in Christ, if you’re here today and you’re not a follower of Christ, if you’ve not put your faith in Christ, I invite you today to put your faith in Him. Cast yourself on the mercy of God. You’re a sinner before an eternally holy God. You need His mercy. He’s offering His mercy. Turn and trust in Him today. Let today be the day when you put your faith in Jesus. When you do—and for all who have—rest in this. Know this. Nothing can separate you from the love of this eternally glorious God.

So what we’re going to do in light of that is we’re going to sing to this God. We’re going to praise this God for His eternally satisfying love toward us, the love that never, ever stops.

Let me pray for us.

O God, we enter into this time of response. We have heard Your Word. We’ve listened to Your Word. We’ve seen Your glory in a fresh way. We’ve seen Your eternal nature. O God, we say we ned Your mercy and we praise You for giving it to us. We praise You Jesus for dying on the cross for our sins, for taking the wrath we deserved, for making it possible for us to stand now and sing about Your love for us. We do that with joy and hope, in light of all the circumstances represented here—things we’re walking though in life—we say we need Your love and we praise You for pouring it out on us. We praise You for the promise that it will never, ever end. In Jesus’ name we pray and we sing and worship now. Amen.